oblivion
by foolondahill17
Summary: Loki stepped over the bodies strewn across the deck, calling forth the Tesseract into his palm, and offered the pulsing blue cube in reverent, desperate sacrifice to the Mad Titan. *Ragnarok and Infinity War trailer spoilers*


My heart! The _Infinity War_ trailer! I am feeling so many different feels that I can't even deal with myself right now. Anyway…have this thing I wrote instead of doing my Abstract Algebra homework.

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oblivion

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/ Soon you will know what it's like to lose; to feel so desperately that you're right, yet fail all the same. /

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"Thor –" Loki's gasp flew from his lips as soon as the massive vessel eclipsed the starry sky in front of the viewport. "Thor – we must be away at once –"

Thor's expression went from confusion to unease as he addressed his brother. Was the fear really so evident on Loki's own face as to give his brother pause? "I do not understand. Loki, is this ship familiar –"

"There is no time!" Loki shrieked. He was disgusted at the panic that crept through his voice but he could not think. His mind had been encroached by the urgent need to get as far away as possible from the looming presence he again felt wending into the fissures of his mind, threatening invasion. "We must flee. You have no idea of his power." Loki turned away from Thor, addressing the attendants manning the consuls across the bridge, looking to Thor for direction – looking to their king, useless in the face of an enemy he could not have possibly foreseen. "Turn us around! Get us out of here!"

"What are you waiting for?" Thor snapped into motion. "Do as my brother says!"

The engines of the Sakaarian vessel fired to life, humming through the floor. The ship attempted to wheel away from Thanos' enormous vessel but – to late –

With a shudder that threatened to throw Loki off his feet, the Asgardian's ship collided with some other unseeable object.

"My King," one of the crew gasped, staring at a blinking red light on a screen as alarms suddenly blared to life across the ship. "We have been breached! Another ship latched itself onto our airlock."

Loki's heart thudded in his throat. He clutched his head in his hands. _He was here_ , the though penetrated his stomach like a blade. Loki could feel Thanos' presence thrumming through his mind.

 _No_. They were all going to die and it was all his fault, once again all Loki's fault –

"A call to arms! We are under attack!" Thor commanded, voice a raging storm. He must have activated the intercom that was fitted into the arm of his throne, for his voice rebounded through the entire ship. "Follow me, your king to confront these invaders – guard the women and children! Protect the indefensible! All those who can fight be prepared to do so!"

Thor swept from the bridge, crew spilling into formation behind him.

"Thor – no," Loki did not know what he was saying. He was acting purely on instinct now as he charged after his brother, pushing aside the guards. "No – you do not know what you are running into. You have no idea –"

"I do not know what knowledge you have of this threat, brother," said Thor, voice dark as he unsheathed the blade at his side, "but I will not let another foe threaten the lives of my people. Not today, I will not."

It was all happening too quickly. Loki had no time to formulate a plan. He had no time to even consider admitting to Thor his great folly – the Tesseract burning a hole through his cloak with ineffable guilt.

They plowed down the corridors of the ship, sirens screaming through the air as they were joined by the last of Asgard's battered warriors, bearing makeshift weapons. Valkyrie swung out of a hallway to join Thor at the head of the pack, sword raised in her hands, eyes lit with a fierce, battle-ready gleam. Heimdall emerged, cloak rippling behind him, and nodded to Thor in affirmation. Korg lumbered out of some alcove announcing, "Hey man, heard there was a rumble happening."

They clattered downward to the cargo hold, which had been transformed into a makeshift barracks for the survivors. Women and children stood in huddled groups, fear on their faces as they turned to receive Thor and his mustered force, hoping for salvation that Loki alone knew would be impossible. The inevitability of their failure swam like nausea in Loki's stomach.

"Get the children out!" Thor's voice cracked into the gaping hold. "Run to the escape pods –"

His voice was cut off as the hatch to the airlock suddenly exploded outward in a shower of sparks and flying rubble. A shock wave shuddered through the Asgardians. Loki teetered backward from the force of the blast and saw through the billowing smoke Thor and Valkyrie holding their ground.

Loki's ears were ringing with the keening alarms, groans of soldiers, cries of children, and residue crackle of the explosion – but still he heard it: a low, sickeningly familiar, rumbling laugh. His very blood forgot to pulse within his veins.

The black smoke cleared, and standing in the airlock door was a single, colossal form: Thanos, shrouded in his armor of bronze, left fist enclosed in the metal glove of the Infinity Gauntlet. He had not brought along an army, but stood alone – and for some reason Loki felt that was all the more reason to be afraid.

"What a glorious welcoming committee I am greeted with," Thanos crowed, emerging into the hold. "How good it is to have you all in one place – so much easier it will be to destroy you in one blow."

"Who are you?" Thor demanded, pitifully dwarfed by the Mad Titan who leered down at him as though he was mildly amused. "Who are you who dares threaten our ship?"

"Your ship?" Thanos cackled. "Why, this is no more than a grain of sand in comparison to my might. Whose misguided thought is yours that assumes you can challenge me?"

"I am Thor, God of Thunder and King of Asgard," Thor declared. And Loki could have laughed. The fool. His brother, the fool – could he not see all was lost?

"And tell me, little king of Asgard," Thanos hissed. "Where is it you hide the Infinity Stone? Did you really think you could conceal it from my grasp?"

"You are mistaken, fiend," Thor growled, "There is no Stone aboard my vessel – and you shall rue the day you thought to attack my people."

With that, Thor pounced, Valkyrie at his side, pathetically reduced army readily backing him up. Thanos responded with barely a show of effort. With a flick of his wrist, Thor was thrown backward into the hull of the ship. Valkyrie managed to hit a glancing blow to Thanos' armored ribs before she joined Thor in a pile on the floor.

"Hey man –" admonished Korg as he approached Thanos, but with a swift blow of the Titan's fist to Korg's chest, the rock giant crumbled into a deluge of pebbles.

It was chaos. Chaos. And Loki stood rooted to the spot as mothers desperately drew their children away from the focus of the fight, could only watch as the Asgardians closed on Thanos as if a they were a hoard of insects. Perhaps if they could not overpower him by brute force than they could at least manage to confuse him with their numbers –

 _In vain. In vain_ , the thought clattered through Loki's mind. It was futile. They could not possibly win this fight.

With a blood-curdling roar, the Hulk battered in the doors to the cargo hold and launched himself over the heads of the warriors, joining the fray, bounding without hesitation directly onto the form of Thanos. The two gigantic beasts collided into each other and collapsed into a tangle of purple and green limbs to the floor. For a moment the struggle was ferocious – two forms of taught, strained muscle tearing unreservedly into each other but suddenly Thanos hauled himself to his feet, gloved hand curled around the Hulk's throat.

With a grunt of exertion, the first of the battle, Thanos hauled the Hulk toward the airlock door. The door screeched open with no command, and the vacuum of space clawed through the hold, sucking wind howling through Loki's ears as he was tugged off his feet, dragged toward the abyss of space –

The airlock snapped shut at quickly as it had opened, and Loki skidded to a stop on the floor.

"Banner!" Thor's yell was in unison with Valkyrie's, who shrieked " _No_!" as the Hulk's untethered green form spiraled into the darkness of space beyond the shut airlock.

The lights in the hold flickered dangerously and Loki's eyes, from where he was sprawled on the ground, flew his brother's figure, suddenly glowing with a crackling inner blue light.

"I warned that you would know regret, villain," Thor spat before launching himself into the air, arching toward Thanos, leaving a stream of sizzling lightning in his wake.

Thanos shouted in delight and rose his armored fist to meet Thor. The air itself seemed to shiver in anticipation and then the combined force of Thor's electric power and the screaming, unfulfilled might of the Infinity Gauntlet smashed through the chamber, took hold of Loki's shoulders and tossed him through the air like he was a ragdoll. He collided against the wall and crumbled to the floor, stunned as all the air gushed from his lungs.

The world was dark and silent. All had ceased. Loki's ears were filled with cotton and he resisted the tug to the recesses of oblivion.

"Enough!" Thanos bellowed, voice whipping through the torpid air.

Loki blearily opened his eyelids. The chamber was crumbled around him, equipment and chunks of walls and ceiling strewn across the floor. Nothing moved. The lights had all been blow out, glass shattered across the hold.

"Enough," Thanos said again, voice softer, and Loki's eyes zeroed in on the Titan. Thor was on his knees, head wrenched back on his neck as Thanos gripped Thor's forehead in his hand. "Little king, your people are dead. The fight is over. If you shall not give me willingly what I seek than I will crush your skull like those of your people." Thanos' knuckles strained around Thor's head. Thor's voice ground in a shout of pain –

"Wait," Loki rasped from the floor and Thanos' piercing gaze was drawn to him, for the moment fist stilling its grasp around Thor's skull. Loki struggled to his feet, body aching in protest. "Wait, my lord."

"Ah ha," Thanos greeted Loki with a smile, "you wait so long to announce yourself, God of Mischief, my treasured pawn?"

"My lord," Loki stumbled forward, barely able to walk. His body was not responding the way he needed it to. He was numb. All of him was numb. His mind could not absorb the extent of the destruction around him. "I beg of you…"

"You beg of me?" Thanos' eyes grew wide in mockery. " _Me_ , little god? What could you possibly ask for that I would willingly grant you? You, who have betrayed my trust after all you promised me –"

The pain through Loki's head was swift and piercing. Loki fell to his knees as Thanos' voice suddenly speared his mind, but it was merely a ghost of the half remembered agony Loki had endured years ago.

"My lord," Loki panted, trying to regain his breath. "My lord, I – I have not betrayed you. I – offer you now what I have so long intended to give you –"

 _Lies_ , Thanos breathed through Loki's mind and Loki's stomach clenched in fear and pain but again he stood to his feet.

He could hear Thor gasping under Thanos' hold. This was not supposed to happen. Loki had not meant for this to happen.

Loki stepped over the corpses of his people. Valkyrie's eyes were still open, single string of blood running down the center of her forehead. Heimdall lay prostrate on his face, all seeing eyes now blinded by the darkness of death. Warriors clutched weapons in stiff, still hands. Children lay in the arms of their parents, curled inward as though in sleep. Their screams would resonate in Loki's soul for however much longer Thanos allowed him to keep it.

Thanos watched Loki as if he was merely some insignificant pest, so easily squashed like the other Asgardians who lay littered across the deck.

Loki extended his hand in front of him – he could not stay the trembling of his fingers – and wordlessly called forth the Tesseract out of its cloak of illusion into the palm of his hand, lifting the glowing blue cube in reverent, desperate sacrifice to the brutal, monstrous form of Thanos that loomed above him, unstoppable and unmerciful.

"My lord," Loki gasped. "My lord, I have fulfilled my oath."

Thanos laughed, voice echoing across the ruined, smoking chamber. He discarded Thor – Loki's brother crumbled – and stepped forward to meet Loki's offering, "So you have, little god," he purred and plucked the shrouded Gem from Loki's hand, entire fist closing around the cube. "So you have."

"Loki –" Thor's strangled voice crept through Loki's ears and Loki could not bear to look at his brother – could not stomach the disbelief and betrayal that simmered in Thor's single eye. "Loki – no –"

 _I am sorry_ , _brother_ , the words burned through Loki's mind but he could not speak them. Useless, meaningless words as they were.

Loki ran his tongue over his lips. His throat was dry. "My lord, I – I beg of you. Please, my brother –"

"What is this, little god?" Thanos scoffed. "I thought I had destroyed this sentiment along with your sanity. No matter," he said briskly, "it will not be long before I manage to do so again."

Rapidly, before Loki could even think to obstruct him, Thanos again grabbed hold of Thor. He tossed the God of Thunder by his head, casually as though Thor was merely some sack of flour, toward the airlock that again yawned open to receive him.

Loki's cry was sucked into the void as Thanos yanked both of them off the ship, jettisoned through the fabric of space by the Tesseract's power, punted away through a portal of whipping blue light as Thor – the last Asgardian – was left to die alone in the cold expansion of empty space.

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end


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